The headline, “Report Reduction Manager,” bores most people. Hopefully you’ve made it past the headline and read these first two sentences, because today we’re going to discuss an exciting new position that companies should embrace to cut through the clutter, eliminate waste and redundancy and improve your employees’ live.
This position is the aforementioned boring title, “Report Reduction Manager.” Every company that has paperwork, reports, position papers, strategic initiatives, chains of command, fact sheets or analytical measures should consider adding this position. It will save time, money, brain power and the sanity of many employees. It may even help you retain people.
EGADS, if it works well and demonstrates results, you may even find that people will seek you out to work for your company. Why? Well, if you are able to reduce the paper load on your team, and cut it down to a level where employees are unleashed to do what they do best rather than spending time justifying their jobs or what they do every week, then you’ve created a winning formula.
Having a Report Reduction Manager on board is critical to that success. Here’s what that person would do:
In almost every stage of our lives there are multiple forms to fill out – going to the dentist, doctor; filling out our income tax; buying a house; selling a car; starting a new job; changing an insurance policy; applying online for a position. Sometimes they are roadblocks, confusing, obfuscating what is needed to the point where you want to bang your head on the table in frustration. We have enough of this in other places where we don’t need it at work too.
If you have the authority, hire a Report Reduction Manager. It would be a fun job – solving problems, making people happy, simplifying the world in your own way. Just make sure applicants understand the position description.
This position is the aforementioned boring title, “Report Reduction Manager.” Every company that has paperwork, reports, position papers, strategic initiatives, chains of command, fact sheets or analytical measures should consider adding this position. It will save time, money, brain power and the sanity of many employees. It may even help you retain people.
EGADS, if it works well and demonstrates results, you may even find that people will seek you out to work for your company. Why? Well, if you are able to reduce the paper load on your team, and cut it down to a level where employees are unleashed to do what they do best rather than spending time justifying their jobs or what they do every week, then you’ve created a winning formula.
Having a Report Reduction Manager on board is critical to that success. Here’s what that person would do:
- Cut through clutter. At its core, the Report Reduction Manager is tasked with reducing paperwork – find ways to eliminate “do nothing” work. Yippeeee.
- Determine what makes sense and what doesn’t. This sounds simple. It’s not. The position requires someone who is smart AND has common sense. Those people are in short supply. Eliminate silly and stupid directives and keep the good ones that help your business grow. Yahooeee.
- Make quick and intelligent decisions. What’s that mean? It means the person in this position must understand the bottom line and what makes it tick. What contributes to sales? What gets in the way of a sale? Find the important stuff. Ignore the flotsam. Get it done without fanfare and using your brain.
- Assimilate a lot of data quickly, then determine what is superfluous. One of the problems in our current world is an excess of unnecessary information that confuses many issues. The person in this position must have brain cells capable of analyzing data, then assimilating it into a solution or discarding it so that others don’t have to deal with it, and are instead freed from the shackles of the multi-headed information hydra.
- Finally, this person must get it done. “We are not doing this anymore,” becomes his or her mantra. “This policy doesn’t make sense, so we’re eliminating it. Let’s move on.” Or, “There’s too much confusing data on everyone’s weekly reports. Moving forward, get all your accomplishments down on one page so we can focus on those successes.”
In almost every stage of our lives there are multiple forms to fill out – going to the dentist, doctor; filling out our income tax; buying a house; selling a car; starting a new job; changing an insurance policy; applying online for a position. Sometimes they are roadblocks, confusing, obfuscating what is needed to the point where you want to bang your head on the table in frustration. We have enough of this in other places where we don’t need it at work too.
If you have the authority, hire a Report Reduction Manager. It would be a fun job – solving problems, making people happy, simplifying the world in your own way. Just make sure applicants understand the position description.